The concept of absolute war was a philosophical construct developed by the military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz. This concept was featured in the first half of the first chapter of his most famous book, On War. In it, Clausewitz explained that absolute war is a philosophical abstraction--a "logical fantasy"--that is impossible in practice because it is not directed or constrained by political motives or concerns, nor limited by the practical constraints of time or space. He called warfare constrained by these moderating real-world influences real war.
In his explanation of absolute war, Clausewitz defined war as "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will". However, war itself does not contain inherent moral or political aspects. These conditions (for instance, the laws of armed conflict) are placed on war by those who fight it, and exist because the intelligence of the civilized nations involved exercises greater influence on their methods of fighting war than does their instinctive hostility.
Absolute war can be seen to be an act of violence without compromise, in which states fight to war's natural extremes; it is a war without the 'grafted' political and moral moderations. In On War, Clausewitz explains what makes up absolute war:
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Famous quotes containing the words absolute and/or war:
“An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.”
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941)
“If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)